Nevertheless, the Sailor had still a little fight left in him. About the third or fourth day out, he had begun to make an effort to pull himself together, and then it became clear that the voyage was doing him good. In a week he was a new man. He was still deeply mysterious, he was not keen and alert as he used to be, but to the unsubtle mind of Klondyke that implied a case of overwork. Indeed, as far as he was concerned, that must always be the primary fact in regard to the Sailor. How the chap must have sapped in the nine years since last they had put to sea. It was almost incredible that a man who had made a reputation with his pen, who in speech and bearing could pass muster anywhere, should have been picked out of the gutter unable to write his own name, and set aboard the _Margaret Carey_. Yes, this chap had enormous fighting power. There was not one man in a million who could have overcome such a start as that. It would be a tragic pity if he went under just as he was coming into his own. When they reached Frisco the Sailor was so much more himself that Klondyke, who at one time had been disinclined to leave him, felt that now he might do so without any fear for his safety. In every way he seemed very much better. He was brighter, less silent. There was still a mysterious something about him which he could not account for, but he felt the worst was past and that there was no reason why Henry Harper should not go home alone. Therefore, when they came to Frisco, Klondyke carried out his plan of trekking to nowhere and back, where boiled shirts would cease to trouble him, and where, with a rifle and a few cartridges, and one or two odds and ends in a makeshift carry-all which had accompanied him to the uttermost places of the earth, he would really feel that he was alive. He invited the Sailor to come with him, yet he knew that such a mode of life was not for Henry Harper. And the Sailor knew that, too. For one thing, he would be wasting precious time he could not afford to lose; again, now that fighting power was coming back to him, he must run his rede, must prepare to outface destiny. Still, in taking leave of his friend, he was trying himself beyond his present strength. The fact struck him with cruel force at the moment of parting on the waterfront at Frisco. Klondyke, wearing a fur cap the replica of one that would ever be the magic possession of Henry Harper, was on the point of going his way, and the Sailor had booked a return passage to Liverpool. It came upon him as they said good-by that it was more than he could bear. "You'll win out," were the last words spoken in the familiar way. "You've not got so far along the course to be downed in the straight. Keep on keeping on, and you'll get through."